Ouran Academy Guest Lecturers Series
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Famous Guest lecturers from all over Japan and beyond come to speak to the esteemed staff and student body of Ouran High School
1. Sohma Shigure

**Title:** Ouran Academy Guest Lecturers Series- Japanese Literature (Sohma Shigure)  
**Universe:** Ouran High School Host Club/Fruits Basket  
**Theme/Topic:** N/A  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Character/Pairing/s:** Shigure, Kyouya, Tamaki, Haruhi, Kyou, Yuki, Renge, Mori, Honey, Hikaru, Kaoru (with splashes of MorixHoney and HikaruxKaoru)  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** None that I can imagine.  
**Word Count: **2,252  
**Time: ** 32 mins (no edits)  
**Summary:** (Ouran/Fruits Basket crossover) A drabble cycle full of crack- the acclaimed writer Sohma Shigure-sensei is given the opportunity to participate in a short guest lecture series at Ouran Academy.   
**Dedication:** Mostly this was just a quickie cycle to entertain myself after I got some weird ideas, but I'll dedicate to Christine for forcing me off my lazy ass to go to the market today. I HAVE SOME FOOD OMG. **  
A/N:** Ahah sorry sparda219! #7 kind of has your request in it! XD It was seriously the best I could do. Also, this is mostly just stupidity for my own amusement, so don't pay it any serious mind, kay? I'm just um… using my summer vacation as an excuse to be an idiot. More so than usual. XD  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

* * *

**1.**

Shigure really thought it was a wonderful school—the students were refined, had prepared themselves for the lecture (more than he had) on his work ahead of time, and most importantly, the ladies all swooned rather gracefully when he flirted with them.

"Sohma-sama," they said to him afterwards, "we're going to the Host Club for the activities period now, would you like to join us?"

"Oh yes, it's a very famous club, you should take a look! We think it would suit you just fine, and we'd love to have more conversation with you on your work!"

In the end, a gentleman like himself couldn't deny the requests of such lovely girls, and so he readily agreed, though the thought of seeing some tragically beautiful young men entertaining cute girls really just made him think of home.

And when he opened the door and was hit by a delicate barrage of rose petals, it simply confirmed his initial instincts-- he truly felt as if he'd simply walked through the front doors of his house.

**2.**

"I love your love stories!" Tamaki declared, and was glowing from head to toe with almost tangible excitement when _the_ Sohma Shigure-sensei was suddenly led through the doors of his humble little club.

"I love this room!" Shigure replied in like, and sparkled from eyes to ankles when the heir to the Suou fortune greeted him so warmly.

"I love cake!" Honey-senpai announced, just because he felt as if he should say something so cake wouldn't feel lonely or forgotten.

"Truly a respite for the beautiful," Shigure continued without missing a beat, and flipped his hair backwards gloriously.

"I'm so happy you share my vision!" Tamaki confirmed passionately, and wiped a single, flawless tear from the corner of one eye in joy.

Kyouya watched them running towards each other in two-shot slow motion and wondered—given his research and calculations as to the sheer size of the Sohma family—if Sohma-sensei and Tamaki could be related in any way.

**3.**

A ten lecture series might have seemed like a lot when he'd first agreed to the gig, but Shigure was beginning to think that tenured work at this academy wouldn't be so bad after all.

He began work first and foremost, on the possibility of a short series of romance stories based on the exploits of astounding young men from high society and their devotion to the beautiful high society ladies that ran in their circles.

Kyouya opposed it on principle.

Shigure smiled and raised a single finger in the air. "Ten percent of all revenues through fourth edition printings and international net profits earned in the United States and Europe."

Kyouya thought that beautiful Japanese literature needed to be more easily accessible in the Western world.

He supported the project with all his heart.

**4. **

The day Shigure brought (dragged) his "adorable little cousins" along for a visit— "ne, ne, Yu-chan, Kyou-chan, you'd look cute in these uniforms, ne? You should enroll here!"—the host club guests quadrupled.

Tamaki wasn't quite sure why.

Yuki wasn't quite sure why either, though he was painfully polite about it.

Kyou jumped fifteen feet into the air and hung by a chandelier when Renge's high power motor suddenly burst through the floor right under his feet. She laughed and declared that their understanding of the situation was weak! So weak!

"Endearing, whimsical older-brother figure!" she said, and pointed to Shigure. He beamed and waved at her.

"A _real_ lonely prince!" she continued, and pointed to Yuki, who blinked back at her.

"An anti-social hermit who has anger management issues and needs to be taught the values of love and human contact!" she finished dramatically, and pointed to the shaking chandelier with all the flourish necessary for any grand finale.

Predictably (really, gentle females could be so single-minded sometimes) Kyou was the hit of the day.

He didn't deign to come down from the chandelier once. Not even for cake.

**5.**

Shigure didn't say anything about Haruhi at first because, while he thought he smelled "girl" on her, sometimes Ayame smelled like girl (and dressed like girl) too, and really, that was just a personal choice. But when he smelled blood on her _and _girl on her about a week later he blinked as the proverbial light bulb went off in his head.

He very politely asked her behind the scenes, why she would choose to dress as a boy.

This sent Tamaki into a flurry of mad hand gestures and barely comprehensible speech—the author could tell the blond was really rather passionate on the subject. "You see? You see? You can't hide that delicate, beautiful, feminine glow, Haruhi! Not from trained eyes!"

"I think…" Haruhi started, and ignored Tamaki completely as she moved to answer the question, "it suits me." She smiled.

He smiled back. "Well, that's nice then."

If Haruhi-chan liked wearing blazers in the same way that Momiji looked better in dresses, what else could be done but sit back and enjoy the view, right?

**6.**

It was brought to the attention to the staff and students during one of his lectures, that Sohma-sensei occasionally dabbled in a less-than literary type of literature.

"Smut!" one bookish looking little librarian of a girl accused him, and fired a literal volley of stinging questions that any hard-hitting journalist would have been proud of.

Shigure smiled at her and touched her cheek and looked deep into her eyes. "Everyone needs to be reminded of their human nature every now and again, ne? The touch of another person… the need to feel so that we can remember in the end, how wonderful it is to connect fully with someone else. This is the only noble, pure thing we can hope to accomplish in a world downtrodden by darker, more selfish things don't you think? Sometimes…" here he paused for dramatic effect, "sometimes I think that this thing you called smut is the purest form of literature of all…"

She turned bright pink and sighed into his hand, and when the ladies in the lecture hall all almost passed out from holding their collective breaths, Kyouya made a note in his portfolio to see if Sohma-sensei was available for some upcoming Public Relations campaigns he was planning for the launch of a new Ootori group experiment.

**7.**

At times Mori and Honey-kun reminded him of Haru and Momiji, and just because he liked to try out things like that (the universe was rife with coincidences and parallels, he'd found), Shigure wondered what it would take to bring out Black Mori.

He started simple—tried to inadvertently step on Mori-kun's toe—but the kendoist feinted to the side with all the unconscious grace of a dancer and murmured "excuse me" when he did.

Then he made offhanded comments about how he'd love to take Honey-kun home with him one of these days, but Kyouya-kun parried the attempt by showing off the research he'd done prior to Shigure's arrival at Ouran—"I suspect if he went home with you he would make great friends with your little cousin… Momiji-kun I believe it was, ne, Sohma-sensei?"—and then Honey had gotten very excited about that part, such that the innuendo was forgotten.

The final strike he made on the matter was suggesting an exclusive read-aloud session of a new story Shigure was writing for the Host Club guests only, and when he invited Honey-kun to sit in his lap while he read it, the small host happily agreed.

While he was nestling Honey comfortably on his knee, Shigure thought that he might have—just _might_ have—felt Mori-kun's eyes pierce right through him for a second.

It made him smile just a little bit, and really, before that moment he never would have guessed himself to be such an adrenaline junkie.

Maybe tomorrow he'd see what kind of threats to his life he'd face if he took Haruhi-chan out to dinner.

**8. **

At first they hadn't liked him. Well, they _still_ didn't like him, but they saw him as potentially someone they could look up to, if only for the fact that yesterday, he'd actually managed to make Mori-senpai twitch (just a single tic) in his left eye, and because of that they couldn't tell if they admired his audacity or couldn't quite believe that such an idiot existed in the world.

He was a fascinating contradiction maybe. And he wrote porn. Some of it vaguely incestuous.

They wanted to know if he was more than just big words—an author who could back his writing up.

"Ne, Sohma-sensei," they said one day before club activities opened, and held up one of his more controversial adult novels. "Do you really support a taboo like this?"

He sparkled. "I support love in all forms."

The act turned on then, and Hikaru turned to Kaoru and cupped his brother's face between both hands, gazing longingly at the face that so mirrored his own. "See, Kaoru? I told you that we weren't the only ones in the world. There are people who understand our love."

Kaoru's eyes were wet with unshed tears. "Hikaru… it would be okay if the world was completely against us, as long as I had you by my side always."

They leaned towards each other then, and touched foreheads.

Shigure clapped.

"Maa, you've mastered that rather well, ne?" he offered, and sipped his instant coffee.

They blinked and turned to the side to look at him in tandem. "What do you mean?"

His eyes laughed. "Well… it may just be these old bones, but the world really is a much larger place," he suggested. "You could take that show on the road. Spread the love!"

They blinked again, and it was eerily in synch.

Shigure's smile turned marginally—just marginally—wicked as he read their confusion. "Na… for instance… do the two of you happen to have any cousins?"

**9.**

"Ojisan!"

Shigure blinked at Kyouya. "Is he referring to me?"

Kyouya adjusted his glasses. "By rank of age, I would assume so."

Shigure didn't know whether to be offended or amused, so he chose the option he always did—unhelpful. "Yes, Tama-chan?"

Tamaki looked to be having quite the fit. "You took Haruhi to dinner last night!"

Shigure's smile was an ambiguous mixture of devilry and sweetness. "We went to a charming little yaki-niku restaurant that she likes. It was quite near her house."

"Fiend!" Tamaki shouted, and looked horrified. "Of all places…you took her to a commoner restaurant!"

Haruhi blinked.

Shigure cocked his head to the side. "Maa, commoner? Aristocracy?" he waved at Tamaki. "There's no such thing in this day and age, is there?"

Tamaki crossed his arms. "Very forward minded of you, Shigure-jisan, but Haruhi only deserves the best, you know! You can't just take her to the places she chooses because she doesn't_ know_ that here are better ones out there! We have to broaden her horizons! My precious daughter isn't just any normal person! She's special!" he declared passionately, and flashed a very warm thumbs up at Haruhi, because there was no way she could take umbrage to his praise this time—he'd worded it very carefully after all.

Haruhi sighed. "Thank you for thinking I'm better than all of my friends and family, but I really don't think I want to be special like senpai is special," she responded, flatly.

Shigure watched the blond freeze and crumble into little bits of dust, still holding that thumbs up.

"Ne, Haruhi-chan," he started brightly after a minute of watching Tama-chan fall apart, dodging the crumbs of Tono that threatened to dust into his coffee as he did, "shall we go eat Korean barbeque tonight?"

She looked thoughtful and sidestepped the Tamaki bits rather gracefully herself. "I know a good one in my neighborhood."

Shigure clapped his hands together. "Excellent. I'll call my…driver." His eyes glimmered, and he looked sideways at Tamaki. "It's a date!"

The rest of Tamaki folded like a house of cards.

**10.**

His last day at Ouran was wrought with copious tears and swooning, the various fangirls he'd collected in his time at the academy asking him to please stay forever. And while he would love to, he felt there was something of a greater sacrifice at stake— leaving would only ensure that fond memories of him linger here at Ouran after him, as well as create a certain aura of mystery and legend about his time here (though in reality all he did with it was flirt and eat cake). But the facts were unimportant-- as a writer, he was well versed in the ways of making the mundane sparkle with a certain kind of mythic allure.

Plus he rather liked that idea of being Ouran's legendary, best-guest-lecturer-ever.

Though at the same time, he did make sure to leave traces of himself behind because he just _hated _to be forgotten completely. There were love stories for Tamaki (it would be quite amusing if he actually used them for reference, after all), contact information for his publishers with Kyouya, candies for Honey, a general feeling of wariness for Mori, and a bit of a tricky challenge for the twins.

For Haruhi, he left— Ayame's business card.

In case she ever did want that just-for-her custom dress every pretty girl should have, and/or someone to remind her that amongst the general category of the most trying people in the world, Tamaki-kun really wasn't all that bad.

**END**


	2. Yuki Eiri

**Title:** Ouran Academy Guest Lecturers Series- Japanese Popular Literature (Yuki Eiri)  
**Universe:** Ouran High School Host Club/Gravitation  
**Theme/Topic:** N/A  
**Rating:** PG-13 for language  
**Character/Pairing/s:** Yuki, Tohma, Tamaki, Haruhi, Kyouya, Mori, Honey, Hikaru, Kaoru (mentions of YukixShuuichi, splashes of HikaruxKaoru)  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** None that I can imagine.  
**Word Count: **3,589  
**Time: ** 1:34 (a lot more difficult than the last one if only because Yuki's a bitch.)  
**Summary:** (Ouran/Gravitation crossover) Yet another drabble cycle- this time the much sought-after Yuki Eiri is persuaded to give a short lecture series at Ouran Academy.  
**Dedication:** More for my own amusement than anything else again, but for Jenkat then, as a welcome back of sorts. **  
A/N:** Now I'm just having lots of fun screwing around with everyone's universe, or something. Yes, this is what I'm doing instead of studying for my final on Wednesday. OH WELL. XD Don't like this one as much as the first one, but I may just be having issues with how long it took. --;;  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

* * *

**1.**

After day one—which consisted of him taking and answering questions like any run of the mill TV interview—Yuki Eiri was fairly certain he could shake his hair out of his eyes for a good hour and a half and have the female population (90 of those attending the lecture) be satisfied with just that and no talk at all.

He retreated when the kids all broke to go and prepare for their activities period and wandered around in search of an unoccupied area of Ouran to have a smoke and delete the four-hundred text messages Shuuichi had dumped into his cell phone (all which probably asked "Are you having fun, Yuki? Do you miss me, Yuki?") during the course of his lecture.

He wandered down a blissfully empty hallway and eventually, came upon a door that was marked as the third music room.

He figured—perhaps a bit naively—that if a school had a first and second music room that would mean that the third one would probably be less occupied. It would be easier to chase out the idiots lingering inside that way.

And so he pulled open the doors, and instead of finding nothing, was hit in the face by several rose petals.

When he got them cleared away from his eyes, a series of voices all exclaimed, "Irrashaimase" in synchronization, and he suddenly came face to face with a couple of pretty boys lounging around in kinky-ass Wild West Regalia.

He promptly shut the door again.

**2.**

He was calling it camouflage. That could really be the only reason he was hanging out here.

At least here—the Host Club was it?—there were other good-looking guys lounging about, which took some of the focus off of him.

He wasn't going to admit that when he'd closed the doors a few moments ago and had turned around to leave, only to be faced with a bunch of oncoming high school girls with hearts in their eyes, that he'd yanked the door back open and decided to take his chances inside with the guys in the cowboy outfits.

He honestly hadn't been expecting the ladies to be headed here in the first place.

It was camouflage. Really.

Except all the other guys around here were wearing very conspicuous wild west wear—he especially noted the pair of twins (oh god) practically making out a little ways away in their chaps—and wondered when his life had suddenly turned into a stereotypical homosexual buffet of wrongness.

Wait. Oh yeah.

Yuki sighed and took the tea sandwich some cute under-aged thing was offering him and wished he could smoke in here.

**3.**

"You're not as charismatic as our last guest," some brat with glasses said slyly. Yuki arched an eyebrow at him.

"Who was your last guest?"

"Sohma Shigure-sensei," the kid ticked off without missing a beat, and Yuki wondered if he'd ever met Seguchi Tohma before.

As for Sohma… Yuki made a face. The last time he'd seen that weirdo Shigure had accosted him for an autograph and then promptly went off on a long spiel about how all writers in this great and wonderful country should really talk to each other more, it didn't matter if, for example, Shigure's books were more successful in international markets and with art critics than Yuki's…what did matter was solidarity, blah, blah, blah.

He twitched at the memory. "Was he very popular?" he asked, and couldn't believe he was curious.

Kyouya adjusted his glasses and took a glance in his portfolio like he'd actually kept statistics from Shigure's visit in there or something. "Oh he was wildly popular," the boy stated. "Seventy-eight percent of Ouran's female population went in and out of the Host Club's doors during the two weeks he was here."

Yuki felt his eye twitch again. "Seventy-eight, huh?"

He could totally do better than that if he wanted to.

Kyouya smiled and asked if he'd like to drop by for another visit tomorrow afternoon.

Yuki was so busy telling himself he didn't _want_ to get into some juvenile pissing contest with the _memory_ of Sohma that he'd agreed before he realized what he was doing.

Kyouya promptly went off to make preparations for tomorrow—he expected a sudden upward spurt in the queue of customers and had to be properly equipped to manage them all, after all.

Yuki needed a cigarette.

**4.**

The next day word had spread—mysteriously—around campus that Yuki Eiri-sensei was going to be at the Host Club as a special guest after his afternoon lecture.

Yuki suspected it had something to do with the creepy kid with the glasses and the portfolio—something about him made him instantly think of Seguchi on certain matters (i.e. the blood in his veins went cold every once in a while in his presence).

His suspicions were confirmed shortly thereafter when he met the "King" of said Host Club formally, the blond teenager definitely way too much like Shuuichi for Yuki to expect him of using anything like guile. Clearly the glasses-kid was the one really in charge here.

"I love reading your stories!" Tamaki preened, and held out a felt marker and one of Yuki's latest novels for a signature. "Ah, romance! Only those who truly have felt such passions can convey its beauty so vividly, ne Yuki-sensei?"

Yuki cringed at the flowers in the kid's eyes and quickly signed the book: "To King: Thanks for buying, Yuki."

To be fair, he'd only written that because he'd forgotten the swishy brat's name, but when Tamaki read the message his eyes literally watered and his bottom lip quivered and in his whole life Yuki had been absolutely certain he wasn't going to meet another person who could do that at the drop of a hat like Shuuichi could.

And yet.

"HE CALLED ME KING!" Tamaki declared, and looked—disturbingly-- like he wanted to hug Yuki. Yuki managed to sidestep just in time, and the kid ended up barreling into some runt with brown hair instead.

"Ah, Tono's being a pervert again!" those twins declared in creepy unison, and Yuki watched with mild amusement as the overly emotional blond all but had a crying fit trying to defend against the defamation of character the clones were laying on him.

Yuki supposed he could come back again tomorrow too-- and not just because he was totally going to kick Shigure's ass—but because the allure of emotionally abusing someone and not feeling bad about it (damned Shuuichi) afterwards was a joy he hadn't felt in a long ass time.

**5.**

"Yuki-sensei," a shy little thing with limpid eyes asked him the next afternoon, two pretty blush spots blossoming on her cheeks.

This really was a piece of cake—he was going to kick Sohma's wily ass without even trying. The universe was as it should be. "Yes?" he asked, and looked at her intensely through his bangs. He smiled wickedly, and that blush started to extend all the way down her throat. Not bad.

She lowered her voice then, and asked very quietly, "W-which of the hosts do you prefer best?"

He blinked.

Oh. Well, he supposed everyone knew about his preferences as of late. Absently, he looked around the room.

There was one pint-sized brat who he wouldn't believe was a senior in high-school if he hadn't seen Shuuichi naked and knew that they could indeed, get pretty damn small if they wanted to. Plus the whole overdone pink bunny thing was definitely giving him a deja-vu case of the heebie-jeebies. Definitely not him.

The blond idiot was sobbing in the corner again because the brown-haired girl in drag was ignoring him, and he crossed both of those off his list on principle—dating one ridiculous drama queen was enough for a lifetime as far as he was concerned, and he was pretty sure he wasn't into dykes who wanted to look like guys. The kid with the glasses was a no too, because of the Tohma vibage.

The twins… a world of eeuw.

He blinked and looked at his last remaining option-- the tall kid who was absently staring out the window while he kept a veritable conveyor belt of sweets running towards the brat with the bunny. The one who said about one word every twenty minutes. "That one," he decided, and gestured absently towards Mori.

The girl smiled up at him. "So Yuki-sensei likes the wild type, ne? It makes sense… if you date rock stars and stuff," she murmured, and sounded like she was in some far off place.

"Sure," he said, and gave her another one of those smoldering looks to distract her.

To be honest, he didn't care if the kid was wild or not as long as he was the quiet type, he supposed. He got shrieked at enough at home as it was.

**6.**

When he was introduced to the dyke—Haruhi—she simply bowed at him in a sort of compulsory manner and said, "It's nice to meet you, sensei."

That had Tamaki practically in fits, and the number of wild hand gestures he made would have probably amazed even Shuuichi. "Do you know who he is, Haruhi? Only one of the best romance novelists in the _world_! Even commoners know who he is!"

She sighed. "I don't read romance novels," she said, flatly, before turning back to Yuki. "No offense."

He shrugged at her. "None."

Definitely a dyke, then. Mika would probably like her.

Tamaki on the other hand, looked fundamentally insulted. "You don't read romance!" he exclaimed. "How can you call yourself a host? The basic principles of this club rest on the foundation of the pure romance that exists between a man and a woman!" Pause. He looked at Yuki for a second "Or between a man and a man!" he added, just to be PC here.

"Guess she wouldn't be interested in either," Yuki butted in, when it looked like Haruhi's eyes were glazing over and he felt his own about to do the same. "Since, you know, she's a dyke."

Both hosts stared at him.

And then Tamaki grabbed Haruhi by the shoulders and shook her in blind panic. "YOU ARE? YOU'RE NOT ARE YOU? ARE YOU? OH GOD, OKAASAN! OKAAASAN!"

The kid with the portfolio materialized out of nowhere. "Yes, Otousan?"

For Yuki, this was definitely getting really bizarre. Even more than it had been earlier, somehow (though he supposed the addition of pet names sort of did that to a person).

Tamaki mibbled. "Is Haruhi a…is Haruhi a…" He couldn't even bring himself to say it.

Kyouya adjusted his glasses and sighed, like he was used to this sort of thing or something. "Bisexual at least, Otousan. Don't worry."

Tamaki sobbed in relief.

Haruhi glared at everyone in her general vicinity. "I don't know if I feel comfortable with everyone making their own decisions about me," she said, and brushed Tamaki's face off of her shoulder sourly.

She could talk all she wanted to, but Yuki still thought she was a dyke.

It was only sometime much later when Tamaki realized that Yuki had figured out Haruhi was a girl.

**7.**

"It's so blatantly…blatantly…shameless!" Tamaki bemoaned to Kyouya one day, supposedly under his breath though Yuki thought that his screamed whispers weren't really doing anything to hide what he was saying (or the fact that he was an Idiot King). "It's like…it's like he's undressing them and ravishing them with his eyes!" the blonde sniffled. "Our guests can't possibly like that, can they? Where's the romance?"

Kyouya absently patted his king's head and continued happily calculating all the additional revenue Yuki Eiri's presence in the third music room had garnered for their next semester's funds.

"Clearly, clearly you can't see the appeal! Honestly, I'm disappointed in you, Tamaki-san!"

Yuki only had a second to wonder where the hell that woman's voice was coming from (given that the club wasn't even open for business yet) before Renge's high powered motor came blasting through the floorboards scant inches from where he'd been standing.

He stared.

The girl who rose out of the ground had cute curls in her hair and the sort of voice that reminded Yuki why he was gay more often than he was straight.

"Ohohoho, _welcome_, Yuki Eiri-sensei!" Renge declared, and held up his latest novel between delicate hands.

"Perhaps Renge-chan can provide us with an enlightened opinion on the matter," Kyouya suggested to Tamaki, and expertly extradited himself as the sobbing lord's counselor on the matter altogether.

"Why, I'm glad you asked, Kyouya-kun! Bow to my superior knowledge!" she said, and laughed behind her hand. "For you see, Yuki Eiri-sensei is the type who Ouran will never—indeed _could never--_ have as a permanent host! Too volatile! Too calculative! Too unpredictable! A womanizer! A playboy! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, _the bad boy type_! He is the _allure of the forbidden _and the one who the women all want to change for the better! A deadly combination indeed!"

Really, listening to her go on and on like this, Yuki wanted to go have sex with some guys like, _right now_.

He was convinced she was going to grow up to be one of those women who scarred men from the fairer sex for life.

He turned to Haruhi and gestured with his thumb towards Renge. "She your little girlfriend or something?"

Tamaki face-faulted.

**8.**

Maybe they'd wanted to get a rise out of him when they'd approached him, but Hikaru and Kaoru mostly were interested in what _real_ homo-homo side characters thought about thing in general. Plus, for all his love of the gay, Yuki Eiri-sensei's body of work had a surprising dearth of the stuff.

"Ne, Yuki Eiri-sensei…"

"… how come you never write any homosexual romance?"

The looked at each other then, and touched foreheads, limbs intertwined around each other professionally enough that Yuki might have thought it was straight out of one of those homosexual romances they were talking about. He arched a brow at them. "If you two are so gay," he countered, "how come you haven't fucked yet?"

To their credit, they smiled deviously instead of folding to his abrupt rejoinder. "How do you know we haven't already?" they answered in creepy unison. "We're brothers you know, we have ample opportunities."

Yuki sighed, and thought that these naïve kids would stop trying to play games with adults. "Because only virgins touch each other that much in public," he stated coolly, and earned collective gasps and blushes from the young ladies in the vicinity. Even though the girls probably knew more about how gay sex worked than the two idiots with the identical faces actually did themselves. Go figure.

The twins looked at him.

He looked back at them.

After a moment, they reached some sort of understanding.

Or at least, something like a relative ceasefire between worthy opponents.

"So," Yuki started, and segued from the topic rather smoothly, "if I let the two of you call me oniisama, you think I could get in on some of that action? I'll make your first times good, promise."

The girls promptly forgot about the previous faux pas and swooned at the idea.

The twins remembered Shigure's words absently, and thought that the chance that was presenting itself might be a good opportunity to spread their horizons a little.

Hikaru blushed, and it was a veritable Host Club first. The girls were practically having seizures in their seats at his pink cheeks.

He turned around then, and touched his brother's face. "I was waiting for our eighteenth birthday, Kaoru," he began, and sounded just the right amount of embarrassed as he moved to explain, "so I could come to you as a man and make you my bride."

Kaoru's eyes shone with just the right amount of unshed tears. "Oh, Hikaru."

"But…" Hikaru started, and stole a shy look to the side at Yuki, "if Yuki-oniisama can show us…maybe it will be less painful for Kaoru…"

"Sacrificial brotherly love!" the girls all sighed. Yuki could almost see their spirits floating out of their bodies.

That afternoon Eiri got a twin on each arm and Tamaki's sputtering, flailing horror when the famous novelist winked and invited Haruhi to join them so it would be an even numbered party.

**9.**

"Ne, Yuki-sensei," one girl asked, as he blatantly ignored the vibrating phone in his pocket, "how come you never pick up your phone?"

He sighed. "It's probably Shuuichi."

The girl looked absolutely enthralled at the prospect of a phone call from a rock star. She blushed. "Don't you want to talk to… your lover?"

The instant response that came to his mind ("not in particular") probably wouldn't have sat to well with the crowd though. So he tossed his hair back out of his eyes and smiled. "I guess I was just so happy to be talking to everyone here and didn't notice it ringing."

She smiled up at him through her lashes and he figured these were the types of innocent lovelorn schoolgirls he could probably get to orgasm with just a couple of pretty words and a pat on the head. He supposed it must be nice to grow up filthy stinking rich.

"I wouldn't mind if you answered," she said, and it was totally obvious what she wanted to hear.

Yuki sighed. "Then excuse me for just a moment." He picked up his phone. "Hello?"

"YUKI! YUKI HOW COME YOU NEVER CALLED ME BACK! ARE YOU OKAY? ARE YOU CHEATING ON ME? WHERE ARE YOU RIGHT NOW? OH GOD I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE I MISS YOU SO MUCH! YOU ASSHOLE!"

Yuki cringed and held the phone away from his ear, though all the current inhabitants of the third music room could probably hear the conversation given Shuuichi's megaphone lungs.

He sighed, and tried not to glare at everyone who was very obviously listening and said the first thing that would shut his idiot lover up he could think of. "I miss you too," he murmured, very, very quietly.

Girls swooned everywhere.

The other end of the phone went dead silent.

Yuki blinked. "Oi… hello?"

After a moment, a very small voice responded, and it sounded absolutely distraught. "Yuki… Yuki are you dying?"

He scowled. "No, I'm not dying."

"Are you sick?"

Yuki hung up.

The girls really thought it was the cutest thing in the entire universe.

**10.**

On his last day Yuki was really rather eager to get out of this bizarre, alterno-universe he'd found himself in the past two weeks, but not before he got the results from the challenge officially (even though he already knew what they were).

"You tied," Kyouya explained, and was reading off that damned portfolio of his again.

Yuki scowled. "You're making that up."

Kyouya adjusted his glasses, and they gleamed. "I assure you I'm not, Yuki Eiri-sensei," he said politely, and took one step to the side before reaching behind him and pulling down a full pie-chart, bar-graph combo seemingly out of thin air. "You actually lost in terms of female standings, as you only raised the club's female guest ratio by a percentage of seventy-three percent," he explained, before gesturing to a smaller chart off to the side. "You did however manage to increase the male customers—your reputation precedes you, I suppose— to nine percent of the total male population of Ouran. When added that increases club guest statistics for the club during your time here to an even seventy-eight percent rise in numbers for the student body as a whole."

Yuki sighed. "Well, it doesn't matter either way."

Kyouya smiled. "I'm sure it doesn't."

Yuki got that shivery bad-touch feeling again (the one he associated with Tohma when he got a certain look on his face) and took a step backwards. "Be seeing you then."

"It was an honor to have you here, sensei," Kyouya responded and bowed ever so slightly.

Yuki took another step back. Eyed the kid like he wanted to say something. Then thought better of it and turned around.

He left without another word, and only when the door had closed behind him did Kyouya take out his cell phone.

He looked into his portfolio for the number he'd been given two weeks ago and dialed it, waiting patiently for an answer.

"Seguchi."

"Seguchi-san," Kyouya greeted, formally. "This is Ootori Kyouya."

"Kyouya-kun. How are things?"

"Yuki Eiri-sensei has just left the building," he reported faithfully, glancing out of the window just in time to see a now-familiar blond figure make his way through the courtyard.

"I trust you kept him out of trouble during his stay with you?"

"Of course," Kyouya assured the record producer smoothly. "As a very important shareholder in Ootori group stocks, I would be very foolish indeed to let you down, Seguchi-san."

He could practically hear the other man's smile from the other end. "Very good then. We'll be in touch."

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Seguchi-san."

Seguchi chuckled a little into the phone. "I'll have that written recommendation to your father in the mail within the week."

"Thank you, sir."

Kyouya hung up with something like a smile, and for the rest of the day everyone in the host club went out of their particular way to avoid him, if only because the happy look on his face instinctively sent collective chills down all of their spines.

**END**


	3. Muraki Kazutaka

**Title:** Ouran Academy Guest Lecturers Series- Biomedical Research (Muraki Kazutaka)  
**Universe:** Ouran High School Host Club/Yami no Matsuei  
**Theme/Topic:** N/A  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Character/Pairing/s:** Muraki, Tamaki, Haruhi, Kyouya, Twins, Mori, Honey (allusions of MurakixTsuzuki, splashes of the usual HikaruxKaoru and inklings of MorixHoney and some MurakixTamaki)  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** None that I can imagine, probably just lots of OOC at the worst. XD  
**Word Count: **3,921  
**Time: ** 2:43 (damn my bad memory)  
**Summary:** (Ouran/Yami no Matsuei crossover) Third drabble cycle in the series- Dr. Muraki Kazutaka is invited by his sponsors in the Ootori group to lecture on his field of expertise.  
**Dedication:** Christine- for all her help reminding me about Muraki-ish things. Because hell if I remember. Also for kshi, because for some reason, when I was writing this, I thought of her. Must be all the megane references. XD**  
A/N:** I watched YnM like, six billion years ago, and never once picked up a single volume of the manga. So. This is probably very, very wrong. Or something. OH WELL. Also, I was planning on making this ridiculous, but then I got into conversations about RPing, and that always makes me emo and wangsty, so it probably bled into this somewhere. SORRY. ;; Also, the medical stuff could be wrong. Because I know nothing.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

* * *

**1.**

Kyouya was given the special opportunity to personally introduce the third esteemed guest speaker who had been invited to do a series of lectures at Ouran Academy, as said guest was currently a rather important contracted member under the Ootori group's supervision and was here due solely to their sponsorship of his current studies. Kyouya was very proud to introduce to the students and faculty of Ouran, a man who had been recognized for his international contributions to the scientific community in the field of clone research: the (in)famous, charismatic, and--above all else—brilliant, Muraki Kazutaka-sensei .

"Muraki-sensei is currently a leader in the fields of genetics, stem cell research, and biochemical engineering," Kyouya announced, and he and Muraki's glasses both shone with a similar, unholy light. "Please welcome him warmly, Ouran staff and fellow students, and take this rare opportunity to explore the latest biological and technical breakthroughs in the field of medicine as we find ourselves facing a future rife with potential, one in which immortality itself is perhaps within each of our grasps."

Kyouya's words were received with a warm wave of applause, and as he stepped aside and let the student body get a good look at Muraki in the spotlight, he thought that this, perhaps even more than either of the others, would prove to be an interesting two-week course.

Muraki's anticipation mirrored Kyouya's, and as he stood to take the podium and begin his self-introduction to the staff and students of Ouran Academy, he couldn't help but think that so many supple young bodies all in one place would make for a very productive fortnight.

**2.**

When the question on moral integrity was raised given his ambitions on the possibility of human immortality—"Isn't it a crime against God?" one professor asked—Muraki-sensei simply smiled winningly and looked all around, his single, intense eye capturing those of the crowd instinctively. "No, I don't think it's a crime against God, to be honest," he said. "He made us in his image after all—gave us the means above all others to aspire to greatness. I think man was given this ambition for a reason, that God is waiting perhaps, for us to reach out to him so that we may sit side by side with him as companions one day. Man has been chasing perfection for as long as he could walk after all, has sought to become closer to the divine in any way he could. Why do you think art museums exist? Music? Those things closest to perfection—like science-- have been preserved so carefully to inspire us… to bolster our perseverance to greater, nobler things."

There was a general reactionary murmur to his words amongst the throng, and not all of it was entirely agreeable to his way of thinking.

He flipped back his hair and smiled charismatically. "Well, for example," he started, and adjusted his glasses in an all too-familiar manner, "wouldn't it be nice for handsome young men like Kyouya-sama and his friends to live forever?"

The crowd burst into cheers as everyone completely, _completely_ agreed.

**3.**

The first thing that struck him about the young man was the fact that he was in the possession of two deep, deep violet eyes. The second was the charming smile.

"Aaah, Muraki-sensei," Tamaki began, and clutched one hand over his heart. "I was very moved by your words this afternoon!"

Muraki smiled, and somewhere in the background, Takashi's nostrils instinctively flared in warning, though he didn't know why. "Well, I'm very glad we're in agreement, Suou-sama."

"That's right! Beauty should be preserved forever, for the enjoyment of all!" the blond continued, and Muraki had never seen such lovely skin before—especially under the glow of such youthful enthusiasm. He wondered if Tamaki used expensive facial products or if he was simply the beneficiary of very praiseworthy genes.

Part of him itched to find out.

But the doctor's smile simply broadened, and somewhere in the background, Mori-senpai felt the hairs on the back of his neck instinctively stand on end. He didn't know why. "Beauty should be preserved, and beauty and intelligence should be celebrated for eternity," he responded graciously, and accepted the cup of tea the handsome young host (really, sixteen was such a lovely, lovely age) offered him.

"Muraki-sensei, you are very clearly a man of great intellectual thought!" Tamaki declared, and looked at the white-haired doctor with those hypnotic purple eyes.

Muraki set his cup down on the table and very gently took one of Tamaki's hands in his own. "Suou-sama," he began, and his voice was low enough that even the young lady sitting beside Tamaki on the other side of the couch couldn't quite make it out. The older man stared deep into those charming eyes. "Have you ever considered donating your body to science in case you happen to die? Beauty should be studied as well so that it may be better understood, after all. It's a very noble cause."

Somewhere in the background, Takashi felt every part of himself freeze instinctively. He dropped a tea cup, and it shattered on the floor. He didn't know why.

Tamaki, in the meantime, sparkled back at Muraki-sensei and grasped the doctor's hands between both of his in return. "Yes, yes, noble… that suits me very well, doesn't it?"

"Shall I have Kyouya-sama add your name to the official list of donors we have? Of course, it would be a shame for a lovely young man such as yourself to meet any unfortunate end, but there would be some good to come of it in that case, wouldn't there?"

Tamaki's heart swelled (as did his eyes, except with tears instead of gracious self-sacrifice). "Yes, very noble!" he echoed, and squeezed the hands clasping his own. "It is fitting that I would be of benefit to the whole world in that respect. Please sign me up right away, Muraki-sensei!"

Muraki's eye gleamed. "Call me Kazu, Suou-sama."

"Please call me Tamaki then, Kazu-san!"

Somewhere in the background, Mori-senpai instinctively doubled over clutching his head. He didn't know why.

**4.**

"Will he be okay, will he, ne, Kazu-chan?" Honey asked, and clutched his pink bunny-rabbit closer to his chest in distress.

Muraki smiled and reached out to pat Honey's head in a reassuring manner.

Except the cute little boy was suddenly snatched away, and the white-haired doctor felt a dark, dark aura staring right at him from the shadows.

He adjusted his glasses, nonplused, and looked into the canopied bed Takashi-kun was currently occupying at Mitsukuni-kun's request, when he'd doubled over suddenly just now.

The older man's smile never faltered. "I'm sure that he'll be fine, Mitsukuni-kun, but everyone would feel reassured once I examine Takashi-kun, ne?"

Honey, looking up at Mori with big eyes, blinked at his cousin. "Ne, Takashi? Let the doctor look at you, 'kay? I'm _super_ worried!" he said, and didn't question why the taller boy had suddenly snatched him up into the afternoon naptime bed like he had.

Takashi looked absolutely torn (his eye twitched once). "I'm okay," he said, after a minute.

"Well, Mitsukuni-kun, I can't examine him if he doesn't want me to, but perhaps we should leave him to rest then, ne?" Muraki suggested kindly, and reached out to offer a hand to Honey. "You and I can go have some cake over there while we let Takashi-kun rest, hmm?"

Mori's stomach seized up and he grunted, arm tightening around his charge instinctively.

"Um… maybe I should stay with Takashi for a while, ne?" Honey posed, thoughtfully. "Here!" he suggested, and thrust his bunny-rabbit out at Muraki-sensei, because he didn't want the nice older man to be lonely while the two of them were gone. "Kazu-chan can take my Usa-chan and go apologize to the guests for me, ne?" He straightened. "I have to take care of Takashi now! Cake should make him feel better!"

Mori looked visibly relieved.

Muraki adjusted his glasses and accepted the bunny rabbit. "Very well then, Mitsukuni-kun."

Muraki left them to their own devices then, and tucked the rabbit under his arm as he returned to the open area of the room. Kyouya appeared beside him some steps later. "How is Mori-senpai?" the teenager asked, and the light hit both of their glasses in exactly the same way.

"I don't think Takashi-kun likes me very much, Kyouya-sama," Muraki explained in an almost amused manner as they walked, their shoes hitting the exquisite floors in perfect synchronization.

"Mori-senpai is more often than not driven by his good instincts rather than by human logic," Kyouya responded without preamble, and smiled just a little bit.

"A shame," Muraki responded, just as bluntly and with just the same smile. "He looked so very… strong." He eyed Kyouya. "Perhaps next time."

Kyouya flipped his portfolio shut. "Please take care of that rabbit you're holding. It's really quite important," he said, and broke off to see to his guests.

**5.**

They seemed to be getting a lot of visitors in the host club lately, Haruhi thought. Guest-hosts, oddly enough, and not just the regular type of guest-guests like one would expect. One would think that such illustrious personages as those invited to Ouran Academy as guest lecturers would find more… intellectually stimulating activities to take part in during their extra time on campus, but thus far, three for three had seemed to prefer frequenting this room and mingling with the dozens of female (and some male) admirers that came to see the hosts.

It was understandable with Sohma-sensei and Yuki-sensei, she supposed—both of them seemed like irredeemable perverts in their own strange ways. Muraki-sensei though, was unfailingly polite, charming, and obviously a laudable name in many different fields of important medical research.

One would think he would have visited the biology club or the chemistry club instead, but he seemed rather content to spend his time chatting companionably with Tamaki-senpai and praising his good looks. At that, part of her wondered whether he was just better at concealing his irredeemable perversions as compared to the previous guests or if he felt some sort of companionship with Kyouya-senpai and preferred to be in the vicinity of the dark-haired vice-president's familiar countenance.

The thought of someone wanting something like that sent an unexpected series of shivers down her spine.

No wonder Mori-senpai thought Muraki-sensei was so off-putting.

As if to confirm her suspicions, the door in front of her suddenly creaked open unexpectedly, and the vestige of an irate-looking cat puppet poked in.

She wondered how the door kept changing shape—it must have cost a fortune for those sorts of special effects and Kyouya-senpai definitely wouldn't agree to foot the bill each time, knowing him. "Nekozawa-senpai?"

Predictably, the familiar cloaked head peeked around the frame a second later, following the cat puppet ever faithfully. "Beezelnef senses a d-d-dark presence. This r-r-r-oom has become c-c-c-ursed!"

At the declaration, Tamaki screamed.

Haruhi sighed.

The twins, Kyouya, and Muraki all looked up at the same time (i.e. the words "dark presence"). They blinked.

Haruhi rubbed her forehead and couldn't help it when she slumped forward a little at the shoulders. "Dark presence, huh?" she asked, and waved one hand a bit resignedly in the direction of the four blinkers. She chuckled ironically. "Which one?"

**6.**

It wasn't that she didn't like him or anything (she hardly knew him, after all), but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something that didn't quite sit well with her about him either. However, she couldn't quite figure out what, exactly, it was. All she knew that her reactions were less volatile than Mori-senpai's. He made her twitch a little, at worst.

Though after their introduction (he'd looked intently at her for a moment or two before breaking out into that smile), he hadn't really paid much mind to her other than when he mentioned that "She almost, almost makes a convincing young man," conversationally to Tamaki.

Tamaki had snorted coffee after rather indelicately inhaling it and then ended up spitting most of it up on the table. Muraki had prescribed cold water and a handkerchief, and had pat Tamaki's back in a companionable way until the young (really, the age of sixteen was absolutely perfect) host regained himself.

"H-h-how did you know?" the blond sputtered after he'd regained the ability to speak.

Muraki's eye gleamed, and Haruhi shivered. "I am a doctor, aren't I?"

But, like with Shigure before him, Tamaki ultimately saw it as an opportunity rather than a revelation. "Her girlish charms just can't be subdued!" he declared, and hoped Muraki would agree. "Wouldn't she be lovely with a dress? Braids in her hair? Oh, Haruhi… papa longs for his cute daughter to return to him, to jump lovingly into his open arms!"

She'd been on the verge of saying, "You'd need to have a daughter first," but before she'd been able to respond, Muraki had reached out and cupped the blond's chin, stilling him mid-tirade.

"I'm sure she'd be very cute," the doctor said, again in low tones as he gazed into wide purple eyes, "but I suppose I'm just not fundamentally interested in young women."

Tamaki blinked.

And then turned bright red. "O-oh."

At the revelation, Haruhi supposed that _that_ was why she didn't get any overtly creepy vibes from Muraki-sensei herself. He wasn't interested.

It was nice in a way, she guessed, to finally have a guest who wasn't always hounding her for some reason or another.

In other words she was safe. At least for this round.

Feeling a lot better about Muraki-sensei now, she shrugged off her previous misconceptions about him and went to prepare for the next shift of guests.

Absently, she wondered how the girls would receive the scene of Muraki-sensei trapping Tamaki-senpai on the couch when they walked in.

She wasn't sure _exactly _how they'd take it of course-- because she fundamentally didn't know about this kind of thing-- but it just seemed like the type of weirdo image that would appeal to them.

**7.**

"Muraki-sensei," one shy little slip of a thing asked him one afternoon, and kept staring at the intricate design of his coat as she spoke, "what made you want to become a doctor?"

He supposed it would make sense that some of these girls had that sort of fetish, and so he humored her, even though he was more interested in getting that cute little blush to work its way down Tamaki-kun's neck again. "My brother," he told her, and smiled mysteriously.

She blushed bright pink.

In his sickbed, Mori shuddered.

"Your brother? He must be very important to you then!" she said, and sounded rather excited at the prospect. A second fetish, apparently.

"My brother was very influential to me, yes," Muraki responded, and continued to smile coolly at her.

"Was? Oh, I'm sorry," she said, and looked ashamed.

"No need, my dear," he assured her. "Even if his physical body isn't here with me any longer, the memories he helped create for me will always be. I will never-- indeed, couldn't ever-- forget him."

Her eyes positively shone at his declaration.

Hikaru and Kaoru took it as a cue, though Haruhi supposed that _everything_ could be considered a cue to them.

"Oh Hikaru… if I died… would you remember me like that?" Kaoru started on the couch opposite Muraki's, leaning just a little bit closer to his brother.

"Kaoru, if you died… I would follow you to wherever you went," Hikaru vowed, and touched his forehead to his twin's, thumbs brushing the other boy's cheeks as he wiped up the two perfectly symmetrical teardrops that had apparently fallen from Kaoru's limpid eyes.

Muraki watched, and really thought that twins were fascinating—nature's clones, as would be the case.

"Idiot," Kaoru responded, and cried even more. "If I were gone of course I would want you to live!"

"It wouldn't be life without you, Kaoru," Hikaru murmured, and stroked his brother's jaw line tenderly.

The young lady was in raptures.

Muraki simply smiled enigmatically and leaned back into the couch. "Luckily for you two, you're a special case," he began, and sipped coffee. "If one of you died, even if we didn't have a body, I could just make a copy from the survivor's DNA. With a little bit of time and the right funding, of course." He paused, and his eyes crinkled just a little bit mirthfully. "However, if both of you were to mysteriously disappear… Well. That's another story altogether."

It was perhaps the first time in their entire lives where someone had actually been able to give the unflappable Hitachiin brothers the creeps.

**8.**

The ladies really thought that Muraki-sensei, who was always all in white, made a pale and lovely complement to their king, whose vibrant colors and personality seemed to call out for the touch of the older doctor's large, cool hands. Symbolically one was color, and the other was the culmination of all colors, the glow and exuberance of youth working alternately with the expertise of an adult's knowledgeable fingers.

"It's magnificent!" they cried, and Tamaki's red, red blush was really just as lively and praiseworthy as the rest of him.

"It's so refreshing to see Tamaki-sama look so small and cute for once, ne?" others asked, and almost made him sputter in indignant disbelief.

He was a professional though, and managed to keep relatively calm. He told himself that if this was what made the ladies happy, then so be it! His job as a host at Ouran was to bring happiness and good fortune to all those who walked through the doors of the third music room, after all.

That decided, he put on quite the brave face for his adoring throng.

He only squeaked once, even.

And to be fair, Muraki-sensei's hands had been in his pants.

The girls absolutely loved it.

As Renge announced when her high powered motor brought her up through the floorboards, "Reversals keep things fresh! Lively! Beauty is beauty, but a different lighting can make things glow in a new and wonderful way!" she laughed, before complimenting Muraki-sensei on his particularly lovely coat—"It would make amazing Weiss Kreuz cosplay!"

Kyouya in the meantime, took lots of notes (and pictures) and discovered that Tamaki on the bottom really was a lot more popular than he might have first anticipated.

Of course, he had to be objective about this. Only photo collection sales would tell the truth of Tamaki-uke's real attractiveness to the guests, and that was (from this very moment) at least a whole week away in terms of production time.

In the meantime, he calculated what steps would need to be taken by himself to create more Tamaki-bottoming opportunities should they be necessary in the future.

Muraki-sensei wouldn't be here _forever_, after all.

**9.**

When a young man from Class 2-F— a second son of the Oyamada family by the name of Ayase-kun -- went missing for a good three days during Muraki-sensei's lecture series, Ouran Academy went into a certain state of chaos.

The administration promptly apologized to the good doctor and cancelled two of his lectures in lieu of holding an assembly and silent vigil for the friends and family of the missing boy.

Muraki of course, understood completely. Acting with great aplomb, he generously offered his services as a licensed psychiatrist to the school as well, and any other aid he might be able to render while he was here. He was a great help to the distraught Ouran staff and to many of the students as well, as something like this was very much unprecedented in their school (from which it was presumed Ayase-kun had been abducted).

Though on the other hand, this sort of thing was perhaps not so unprecedented in the students' larger social circles, considering many of the Ouran attendees (past and present) had been kidnapped at least once as infants and ransomed back to their parents. It was-- at least for the more socially important of them—almost like a rite of passage.

Ayase-kun's parents and older brother made the obligatory thank you speeches during the assemblies, calling for the hope and vigilance of everyone present, though they were mostly certain the kidnappers would call sometime soon and the whole ordeal would be handled after some obscene amount of money changed hands.

"Thank you for putting my family in your thoughts and prayers during this great time of tribulation," the boy's mother told the assembly, to a spattering of sympathetic applause.

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Muraki murmured, and patted her hand when she came back from speaking to sit next to him on the stage.

"He'd always wanted to be kidnapped, really," his mother explained with a small, nervous laugh. "Ever since he heard stories about Reiji's—his brother's—kidnapping when he was a baby. Ah, having more than one son is so troublesome! They're always trying to outdo each other, you know."

"How tragic," Muraki said in a placating manner, and continued to pat her hand.

She smiled back, a bit watery-eyed. "We apologize for interfering with your lecture series Muraki-sensei. Really, Ayase has such bad manners for picking a time like this to find trouble. And just the other day he was practically raving about getting to listen to you speak." She laughed a little. "He's really quite the fan of yours, you know."

Muraki smiled. "He must be a nice boy."

She nodded. "Oh yes. Sixteen years old still and such a wild dreamer."

Muraki adjusted his glasses and leaned back slightly in his chair. "Sixteen is a wonderful age."

**10.**

The day that Muraki-sensei made his formal good-byes to the faculty and student body of Ouran Academy and went back to his research in Kyoto, Mori-senpai made a remarkable (instant) recovery. Ouran as a whole was still waiting for Ayase's ransom call (people were actually starting to _really_ worry now, as ransom calls usually came within at _least _the first 72-hours, as stated by the experts in the school who'd experienced similar crises during their youths), but other than that small alteration to the daily life of the students, the academy mostly returned to a relative state of normalcy with the departure of their latest famous guest lecturer.

However, everyone (save Kyouya) noticed that a lock of their hair had appeared to have gone missing during the course of Muraki-sensei's stay with them.

When they asked the vice-president about it, he simply smiled and said, "I suppose it's just a fact of nature that scientists will all have weird social quirks, ne?" in an almost amused manner as he calmly adjusted his glasses. Everyone felt a little bit dirty at the prospect, and how easily Kyouya seemed to shrug it off didn't help their worries any.

Hikaru and Kaoru were, unsurprisingly, the only ones who didn't get _too_ paranoid about the possibility of one day having clones of themselves running around the planet without their knowledge.

"The world would be a better-looking place," they agreed, and shrugged at one another simultaneously, before sitting down in unison and sipping instant coffee in tandem.

Haruhi would have been disturbed at how blasé they were about the whole thing, but in retrospect she supposed that if that was what helped them sleep at night… well, it couldn't be helped, right?

In a similar vein, she reminded herself that Muraki-sensei—by his own words-- was fundamentally uninterested in young women.

**END**


	4. Takamiya Katsura

**Title:** Ouran Academy Guest Lecturers Series- Foreign Literature in Translation (Takamiya Katsura)  
**Universe:** Ouran High School Host Club/Love Mode  
**Theme/Topic:** N/A  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Character/Pairing/s:** mentions of TakamiyaxIzumi, splashes of MorixHoney and HikaruxKaoru (as, I hope, they are in the anime), and pretty much just…everyone.  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** None that I can imagine.  
**Word Count: **3,235  
**Time: ** 1:47 mins (no edits)  
**Summary:** (Ouran/Love Mode crossover) Fourth drabble cycle in the series- Takamiya Katsura is invited to Ouran for a ten lecture series regarding his profession and thoughts on literature in translation.  
**Dedication:** Christine- congrats on finishing your MCAT today! Also for Ann, because she's probably the only person I know who knows both series. XD **EDIT:** AND Jen! JEN KNOWS LOVE MODE TOO I AM ASQUEE WITH JOY! HONESTLY I HAD NO IDEA! XD **  
A/N:** I dunno—I'm kind of just writing because I have nothing else I particularly want to do. Just amusing myself until my brain stops being sloshy in my skull, I suppose. Damned heat just fries any intelligence I might try to scrape up. Also, this probably makes a bit more sense here and there if you've read the first three in the series, but it's not _really _necessary, I suppose. XD Oh, and on a final note, don't know about the languages. I make assumptions that could be wrong, but it really has been a long time since I've read Love Mode, so forgive me for any glaring trespasses I make on the universe. ;;  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

**1.**

Takamiya was clearly very happy to be here, though Kyouya got the sense that this man was the kind of person who was really happy to be just about _anywhere_.

Another person very much like Tamaki really, and surprise, surprise, Tamaki was a great fan of his work, having more often than not, read the original in its original language and then read the Japanese translations just to see how they measured up.

Most of the girls attending Takamiya-sensei's seminar seemed to be fans too, but that could be attributed to something else altogether, if their questions were any indication as to where their true interests lay.

"Um…what's your favorite color?" one asked shyly, touching her index finger to her bottom lip in a bashful, hopeful manner.

"Blue!" Takamiya responded with a broad smile and no indication at all that he knew how to translate aho to idiot let alone eigo to nihongo in the broader sense of oh, his career.

"Um… do you like chocolate?" another girl asked, buoyed by the positive answer her peer had just received.

"I love chocolate!" Takamiya answered, and his smile never looked insincere for a minute. "All sorts of chocolate!"

"Do…do you like cake?" a third girl—a senior—asked, and Kyouya suspected he knew exactly where this was going.

"I love cake too!" Takamiya told her. "All sorts of cake!" He was genuinely, genuinely having a good time.

"Do you want to have cake with us after lecture, sensei?" a fourth student asked, and Kyouya thought that maybe he should start a betting pool somewhere someday, just for all the times he was always right. The profits he would make would be astronomical.

"I would _love_ to have cake with you all after lecture!"

"Kyaaaa!"

Kyouya adjusted his glasses at that, making a note in his portfolio and mentally preparing himself to invite yet _another_ happy idiot through the doors of the third music room for today's club activity, and possibly (if the pattern held) for the next two weeks or so as well.

If they talked about Takamiya's work once during the course of his tenure here, Kyouya surmised it might actually be something akin to a miracle.

"Do you like handsome young men, sensei?"

"My favorite things in the whole universe!" Takamiya told the young lady brightly, and clearly meant every word of it.

Kyouya wondered also, if there was perhaps, some sort of pattern to the types of guest lecturers the school seemed to be bringing in this year.

He made a note of it in his portfolio and hoped that Takamiya-sensei didn't like cake like Honey-senpai liked cake or that he didn't like handsome young men like Muraki-sensei liked handsome young men.

For one thing, they really couldn't afford to keep _two _cake eating machines on the premises for any extended amounts of time, and for another, from what he could remember, Oyamada-san's memorial had been a rather dreary affair.

**2.**

Haruhi stared at the two as they happily gibbered in French to one another, sipping milk tea and occasionally pausing to nibble on petit fours or _sparkle_ for effect.

Tamaki finished saying something (all she could make out was the _"c'est magnifique!"_ partbeforeextending both hands in the direction of the newcomer and posing at a (very effective) three-quarter angle for a moment or two.

Takamiya-sensei clapped at whatever it was he'd said, chattered some more things in response, and gestured towards Tamaki warmly as well.

"Wow, you really do have to talk through your nose," Haruhi observed after a moment of listening in.

She couldn't really find anything else to say on the matter.

At all.

In the meantime Honey-senpai frolicked amongst the shower of sparkles they were throwing back and forth between one another, until Mori-senpai tugged him aside and made him put on a pair of sunglasses so he wouldn't damage his eyes.

Haruhi thought that maybe she would take Chinese next semester.

**3.**

Katsu-chan really liked cake! Honey was glad, because it was nice to get to talk to someone who liked cake as much as he liked cake, and who liked his usa-chan lots as well.

"Do you have an usa-chan, too?" Honey asked Takamiya around a mouthful of strawberry shortcake with extra, extra strawberries.

"I actually have a neko-chan," Takamiya responded cheerfully, and sucked cream from a nice big dollop of tiramisu that had accidentally gotten onto his fingertips.

"Waaaa, neko-chan?" Honey-asked, with huge eyes. "Is it cute, Katsu-chan? Ne, is it cute?"

"He's the cutest neko-chan in the whole world, Mitsu-chan!"

"Waaa, that must be really cute!" Honey marveled, and licked cream from the corner of his mouth.

"Yup!" Takamiya agreed, and sounded very content. "Just like your usa-chan is the cutest usa-chan I've ever seen!"

Honey giggled happily. "More cake?"

"Please!"

Everyone who was watching the two of them interacting across the table thought that they could suddenly see the future.

Haruhi couldn't help but think that they were all missing something there too, and wasn't sure if it was due to depth or lack thereof.

**4.**

"This doesn't bother you?" the twins asked from the tangled maze of limbs they'd woven around each other, their faces very close.

They were determined to find _one_ guest who got righteously indignant about it. It was sort of a self-punishment game they'd thought up after Yuki-sensei had caught them spinning lies in front of everyone. There had to be at least one straight-laced idiot out of the bunch. Famous people were rarely that interesting, after all.

Takamiya practically glowed at them both. "I used to have an uncle who kissed very well," he offered, and found that he wasn't so obsessed with the whole thing like he used to be, if he could bring it up just like that. His heart swelled at the thought and he really couldn't love Izumi more than he already did.

Hikaru and Kaoru looked at each other for a second, and then turned back to the dreamily sighing writer on the couch opposite them.

"That's kind of…"

"…gross," they said after a moment, and stared.

Takamiya laughed. "Yeah, it kind of is, I guess. I mean… when you think about it."

His smile never changed.

**5.**

On the Friday of his first week lecturing at Ouran, Takamiya tripped and fell off the stage while in the middle of a particularly passionate explanation regarding why he liked Chinese bakeries over French ones for their lunch items but liked the French over the Chinese for desserts, thus creating an equal-to situation rather than a greater-or-less-than one.

Girls all throughout the auditorium shrieked as they watched him—in solo slow motion—plummet towards the ground below.

Mori-senpai, miraculously, was there to catch him before he hit the ground.

Girls all throughout the auditorium swooned when the older man sighed in good-natured relief and rested his head against the senior's chest for a moment, to collect himself.

"Thank you!" Takamiya beamed after that moment was up.

Mori nodded, and silently set him down.

Later, everyone wondered how Mori had gotten from the third seating tier of the auditorium to the orchestra pit before Takamiya hit the ground.

"Takashi actually left a few minutes before!" Honey-senpai explained (or failed to explain) happily, and didn't say another word on the matter because he was too busy lapping up cream from the inside of a superb green-tea flavored cream puff.

"Aa," Mori agreed, and didn't quite understand it all himself.

"Well, in either case, I was very relieved!" Takamiya told everyone with a chuckle, and cheerfully munched on a mouthful of raspberry mousse cake.

All the people watching the two of them suddenly felt like they could see into the future again.

The protective instincts only confirmed it.

**6.**

It happened upon the day they decided that Italian was to be the European language of choice for passionate declarations when suddenly, in the midst of conversation, Tamaki made a loud, strangled noise and clamped a hand over his mouth.

"I mean _man_," Tamaki corrected in Japanese again, hastily, quickly, pointedly (obviously). "Haruhi is a very good looking young man! And manly! Very male. I get Italian pronouns mixed up sometimes you know. Hahaha… ha."

Haruhi sighed to herself and supposed she couldn't fault Tamaki-senpai for lack of _effort_ so much as a general lack of subtlety.

Takamiya beamed, and patted Tamaki's hand in a reassuring way. "Oh don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

Tamaki stared. "You mean…"

"Not to say that she isn't cute," Takamiya continued, warmly, "but let's just say my instincts told me her type of cute wasn't the type of cute I'd ever really be able to appreciate to the fullest potential."

Tamaki didn't really get it (as glaringly obvious as it was), but he figured it was as good a time as any to go on another soap-box tirade about how feminine beauty could never ever be downtrodden by any sort of fake masculinity now that he had another sympathetic ear.

Haruhi tuned that familiar part out, and so far, counted the guest lecturers at four-for-four.

If it was so seemingly easy, she couldn't help but wonder-- very briefly-- what exactly, was wrong with the _rest_ of the school.

But then again, she supposed— generously-- that money tended to make people eccentric…or something.

**7.**

"A host club, huh?" Aoe said dryly from his end of the telephone when Takamiya called him in the middle of the work day, Katsura thinking that the other man would find this whole situation singularly funny too. In the middle of the work day.

However, the irony was apparently lost on his friend.

Really, Reiji had no sense of humor sometimes.

"Well, a host club full of high school kids, I guess," Takamiya amended, and ignored the other man's general aura of grumpiness (a commendable task given that he could practically feel it oozing out of the phone's earpiece).

"Ah, I see now," Aoe remarked, this time with some of that lost irony lacing his voice. "It explains why _you're_ there, in any case."

Takamiya would have taken affront to that jab against his character if he was generally the type of person who could be offended. "Shall I pass out your card?" he asked, voice full of good cheer. "They're very professional you know. You'd hardly have to train them! Though I um, don't think they provide certain services. I mean, as far as I can tell." Pause. "Maybe the twins might."

There was a long instance of silence from the other end of the line. "Twins, you say? Hmmm."

Takamiya grinned. "Twins!"

"Well, you sound like you're having fun, Katsura."

"It's very nice here," Takamiya agreed, affably.

"If my card makes it into any one of those under-aged brats' hands I'm calling _your _under-aged brat and asking him if he knows where his idiot is. Sometimes I think he really ought to keep you on some sort of physical leash."

Takamiya pouted. "Aw, c'mon, Reiji, that's not nice at all!"

Reiji chuckled, darkly, and Katsura wondered if maybe he'd underestimated his friend when he'd thought he didn't have a sense of humor.

"Goodbye, Katsura."

The click on the other end of the line left the threat of a call to Izumi hanging unfinished between the two of them, suggesting to the writer that maybe the other man _did _have a sense of humor after all.

It just leaned towards the cruel and unusual.

Takamiya looked at his cell phone for a moment before flipping it shut.

He couldn't help it when he thought that maybe Hikaru-chan and Kaoru-chan would get along rather well with Reiji if they three were ever to meet. Maybe he'd like Kyouya-kun too.

**8.**

Takamiya's cell phone rang in the middle of a chat with some nice young ladies on the nature of his favorite kinds of fuzzy slippers one day, and the ring tone was positively cheery.

Takamiya answered it in like, with a smiling, "Hello Izumi! How was your day?"

There was something like hissing and screeching from the other end, but no one would have known it just by looking at Takamiya's happily calm expression.

"Why no, I'm not at Aoe's club, why?" Pause. "He called you and you actually picked up the phone? Well, that's wonderful, Izumi! I'm very happy for you… that's really very mature. What? Well yes, I am still at the high school." Laugh. "Silly, of course not, they're all far too young for that! Well… I was proportionally younger than I am now when we met too, wasn't I?" More laughter. "It makes sense, I promise. Shall I bring back some chocolate for you later?"

That statement was followed by a sharp, angry sounding click.

"I love you too!" Takamiya chirruped, before flipping the phone closed and pocketing it with a smile.

"S-sensei? Who was that? I mean, if you don't mind us asking," one of the girls he'd previously been in conversation with posed, shyly.

Takamiya didn't mind at all, actually. "That was my neko," he explained, simply.

Honey paused in his cake eating just long enough to exclaim, "What a smart cat!"

"Thank you, Mitsu-chan!" Takamiya returned in like.

Some of the girls squealed.

Some of them (well, Haruhi mostly) didn't get it at all.

Which might have prompted Renge's grand entrance into this week's saga, as the high powered motor everyone in the third music room was learning how to dodge rather efficiently came barreling up through the floorboards.

"Clearly your understanding of the situation is juvenile!" Renge declared upon her arrival, and swished her hair dramatically before winking at Takamiya. "Ohohoho! Shall I clarify for everyone then, tachi-san?"

Takamiya grinned and marveled at the whole situation (and the really neat motorized platform that had just appeared out of nowhere). "Well, that's really nice of you," he told Renge, and helped himself to more cake.

Haruhi couldn't help but think that she was probably better off not knowing.

**9.**

It just so happened that the days towards the end of Takamiya-sensei's lecture series at Ouran also fell upon about the usual time of the month for Lobelia's White Lily society to come calling (i.e. come issuing challenges).

Takamiya was really the only one who applauded when they burst through the doors twirling—he thought they sung rather well, and it would have been rude just to stare and not do anything, he felt.

"Humph, what's this? Now you've sullied this room even further by exposing the poor, misguided young maidens of Ouran to some old rich man who can delegate them to the domestic sphere and cut off all their potential for individual greatness? Thinking of selling them off to the highest bidder like cattle? Left to marry and breed and slave away for the selfish desires of pig-headed men? Well we won't stand for this! We won't allow it!"

"This is our guest lecturer, Benibara-san," Haruhi began, patiently. "Takamiya-sensei. He's just visiting."

"Oh! These famed guest lecturers we've been hearing about!" Maihara exclaimed, disdainfully. "You've had four thus far, yes?"

"Yes I believe four!" little Hinako chimed in, not bothering to wait for an answer from the Host Club.

"Four men!" Benibara accused, and pointed (she had commendable posture, Takamiya thought) right at the writer. "What kind of message does that send?"

"Clearly Ouran doesn't believe that women can be successful!" Maihara decried, and clutched her hands to her bosom. "Atrocious!"

"Vicious!" Benibara agreed. "Well! We've come to tell you something very important, beasts of Ouran!"

The hosts all sighed. "That you're calling us out?" they asked, in tandem.

Takamiya thought everyone speaking at the same time like that was pretty neat too.

"We're calling you out!" the Lobelia girls responded in like simultaneity, and spun again. "_And_ your guest!" they added, before stopping mid-turn to stare at Takamiya accusatorily. "Men like _you_ are what's wrong with society today! Sullying maidens' worth by coming along with your money and your charm and your success and buying and selling girls like a mere commodity!"

Benibara snapped her fingers then, and seemingly out of nowhere, Tsuwabaki and Maihara produced a white board and a dry erase marker, the two bowing gracefully before handing the items to their leader.

The board read "Called Out!" on it, and already had Tamaki-kun and the other's names written on it several times over. Takamiya could only surmise that the boys' names were really fun to write. They were very nice names, after all.

Without further ado, Benibara flipped the cap open with a dramatic flourish Takamiya had only ever seen in the professional theater and wrote his name next to Tamaki-kun's in large, elegant script.

"There!" she declared, and stepped back from her work.

"There!" Chizuru echoed.

"Theeeeeeeeeeeeeere!" Hinako finished, in the key of F.

"How lovely," Takamiya responded, and poured creamer into his beverage.

"Fiend!" the girls cried in tandem. "You're mocking us!"

"I can practically feel you eyeing us impurely!" Chizuru bemoaned, and her eyes shone fiercely.

"Dog!" Benio agreed.

"We girls are not mere objects here to satisfy your lust!" Hinako agreed.

"BE GONE!" they chanted, and the key went straight to a chilling A minor.

"Well," Takamiya began, and stirred his coffee gently, "I'm gay." Pause. "Though you're all very pretty," he added, because he didn't want to offend anyone here.

The three visitors paused at that. Blinked.

Silence.

And then, "Oh. Well. Good for you."

"Right."

"Right!"

"Riiiiiigggght!"

G major now. Takamiya really thought these girls were wonderful.

"Eraser!" Benibara demanded, and Tsuwabaki rushed to comply. The taller girl then twirled (very well, if Takamiya might add) back towards the "Called Out" board.

Maihara pirouetted in support of her classmate, and before long (three very crisp turns), Takamiya's name was erased from the board.

Everyone blinked.

The twins looked at each other, and after a moment, raised their hands simultaneously. "We're gay too!" they announced, and then smirked wickedly. "Really, Tono is the only one here who isn't."

The "Called Out" board was thus officially stripped down to one name (written five or six times) that very afternoon, and everyone had Takamiya-sensei (and the sobbing Tamaki, in a way) to thank for it.

**10. **

Meanwhile, from his high-rise office at the top floor of the infamous Blue Boy, Aoe Reiji couldn't quite shake the words that his happy idiot of a friend had (in theory) planted into his head rather unwittingly.

Reiji really hated it when Katsura pulled stunts like this—the man was admittedly a good guy but at the same time, singularly infuriating.

Especially when he knew how to appeal to Reiji's deeply ingrained sense of business savvy.

"I ought to have him whacked," Aoe muttered to himself, and ordered Kashima to please bring him two aspirin and a glass of water as soon as possible.

He really didn't like it when Takamiya went off and said something that made cutthroat entrepreneurial sense like he had.

Katsura had taught him how to live once before already, after all. Aoe wasn't sure he fancied the other man teaching him how to _work_ on top of that.

Reiji folded his hands together and furrowed his brow at how distasteful a feeling that left in his chest.

Still, though.

_Still_.

It wasn't a half bad idea.

He sighed to himself and couldn't quite stop the slight upturning at the corner of his lips when he thought more about it.

"Twins, huh?"

**END**


	5. Takarada Lory

**Title: **Ouran Academy Guest Lecturers Series- Entertainment Business Practices and Talent Management (Takarada Lory)  
**Universe:** Ouran/Skip Beat  
**Theme/Topic: **N/A  
**Rating:** PG  
**Character/Pairing/s:** Host Club, Takarada (appearances by Yashiro and Ren )  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** None I can imagine.  
**Word Count:** 6,500  
**Su****mmary:** (Ouran/Skip Beat crossover) Fifth part in the series- L.M.E.'s esteemed president Takarada Lory-san is invited to give a ten lecture series on the day to day business of being a leader in the entertainment industry. As expected, he makes a production out of it.  
**Dedication:** Ann- Thank you for all the things I may have forgotten to thank you for.  
**A/N:** I always wanted to do a fifth part to this but got stuck on a lot of possibilities as to who the fifth lecturer would be. In some incarnations it was Yumichika (Bleach) and in others it was Yuuko (Holic), but when I got into Skip Beat somehow this just felt all the more natural. Until I actually got down to writing it, anyway. This was totally supposed to be much more fun than it turned out.  
**Disclaimer:** No harm or infringement intended.

* * *

**1.**

The first time that Takarada Lory-san visits Ouran Academy's hallowed halls is also the first time in the school's proud history that a shower of rose petals rains down upon the grounds without having the express permission or direction of a member of the Host Club (specifically Kyouya) beforehand.

There is also a parade of elephants, fire eaters, Mardi Gras acrobats, and what Kyouya can only assume are Appalachian cloggers to follow immediately after said shower of rose petals, but that is neither here nor there, because what truly matters is the fact that Kyouya is subsequently forced to make an emergency change of theme in today's host club décor and—more importantly— go over his daily budget allotment as he grudgingly phones all of the local (upscale) florists. From them he orders fifty kilograms of white sakura petals to blow through the air of the third music room instead this afternoon, and has the rose petals he'd prepared earlier taken back and put on ice in the event that they can be used at a later date for something else. Perhaps tea.

It's a bothersome task really, but as a businessman Kyouya also knows that the Host Club simply cannot afford to be upstaged by another party, even if that party is the academy's next esteemed—and famously flamboyant— guest lecturer. To be seen as behind the times or worse, as copycats (even accidental ones) would be a heavy blow to the Host Club's prestige (as well as Kyouya's pride) and thus cannot be allowed happen, regardless of the cost or the trouble.

As such, Kyouya quietly does damage control as the festivities continue around him; his order for the sakura petals to be flown in by Ootori company helicopter is confirmed just as Takarada-san's lumbering spectacle finally comes to a sensational musical halt in front of the auditorium's vast stage.

"Hello, my lovelies!" L.M.E.'s enthusiastic president shouts into the microphone as he leaps up to the podium, making a dramatic gesture involving both hands and the artistic bent of one knee. The king's robe he is wearing slides off of his shoulders as he stands again, revealing an exquisitely made costume of full European military-style regalia underneath.

Kyouya's eyebrow twitches marginally when he sees this, as he finds that he has to make yet another phone call before the morning is through.

"Yes," the host club vice-president says a few minutes later, to a very harried professional tailor across town, "it seems that today we will need the Shinsengumi outfits after all. Please have them altered to specification and delivered to us by four o'clock this afternoon."

In the meantime, Tamaki sparkles obliviously in his seat beside the vice-president as Takarada-san finishes his greetings, the blond pulling eagerly on Kyouya's sleeve with all the excitement of a five-year-old child at the circus. "Kyouya," he breathes, eyes huge and excited as he gazes at Takarada-san's magnificent entourage, "can we have a parade of elephants as well? Can we, can we?"

Kyouya adjusts his glasses. "Not for at least ninety days after today," he answers in all seriousness, and makes Tamaki pout.

Kyouya ignores him professionaly; instead he notes in the margin of his ledger that it looks like next Thursday's Carnival theme is out as well.

**2.**

Tamaki is very moved by Takarada-san's words.

"Love!" the L.M.E. president shouts vehemently into the microphone, while his dancers and his cloggers and his fire eaters dance and clog and fire eat in emphatic agreement in the background. "The entertainment industry is all about love! Passionate, burning, beautiful love, and the way loving and being loved in return changes the very foundations of our psyches!"

He pauses for dramatic effect.

Tamaki applauds wildly.

"The people who find themselves in the spotlight seek love above all else, after all," Takarada-san continues hotly, "and those who watch the people in the spotlight clearly have excess love to give. My job is to bring the two together— those who need and those who have— so that I can create a holy bond; one of the most pure and fulfilling relationships known to man!"

Tamaki has tears in his eyes. "It's true! It's true! I need to be loved!" he sobs beautifully, unconsciously angling— as only the beautiful people can— so that his tears sparkle like diamonds even under the dim auditorium lights.

In the audience, everyone's eyes are immediately drawn to him like this, his own naturally created spotlight. They gasp in adoration. "We love you, Tamaki-sama!" the girls (and some of the guys) all cry in haste, each of them passionately stirred by Tamaki's tragic beauty and the knowledge that they—just as Takarada-san had said—have extra love to give Tamaki, who so very clearly needs every single bit of it he can get.

It is a beautiful moment of unity (or something).

And in the midst of it all, Takarada-san is gone from the podium and instantly at Tamaki's side, appropriately holding his hand. "You," he breathes, looking Tamaki over intensely, "have the aura of someone who truly desires to be loved. A brave young man bearing his heart in the spotlight like this is absolutely breathtaking! A show stopper!"

"Yes," Tamaki agrees, and is deeply moved by the fact that this stranger understands him so well, "I am."

"Someone with your glow deserves to be nothing less," Takarada-san assesses professionally.

Ecstatic, Tamaki turns to Haruhi, who is reading quietly in the seat beside him. "Do you see, Haruhi?" he asks eagerly, happily, "I need to be loved!" His eyes are full of hope and adoration as he says this, clearly waiting for her to agree before warmly jumping into her papa's arms to declare that even if everyone here loves him, she loves him the _most_.

At the sound of her name, Haruhi blinks up from her book and— in a way that only commoners can— sees nothing under the dim glow of the auditorium lights but Takarada-san on bended knee in front of Tamaki, holding the blond's hand and looking deeply into his eyes.

"Love?" she asks, and absently wonders what she'd missed while she'd been reading. She's so used to tuning out unnecessary fanfare at this point in her life that it comes quite naturally, whether she means to or not.

"Love!" Tamaki echoes again, nodding emphatically at her while squeezing Takarada-san's hand more tightly in his own as in anticipation of her positive (and effusive) answer.

A beat.

Then, "Well then I'm happy for you, senpai," she decides with a decided lack of effusiveness, and in looking at the two of them, somehow feels like this will be a good match despite the obvious age difference. "Who knew that in this world there was someone else out there exactly like you?"

Then she calmly goes back to reading, while Tamaki turns chalk gray and dissolves into a fine powder of sparkling dust between Takarada-san's white-gloved fingers.

Everyone watching thinks that the way Tamaki-sama does it is also—or rather, can be nothing but— truly beautiful.

**3.**

"It's a tradition!" the girls tell him after his first lecture, and lead him down the hallways with a decidedly anticipatory air about them. "All of the guest speakers thus far have come to the host club after their lectures to tell us more about themselves and what they do."

"There is also tea and cake!" another girl adds, because that had been all that was necessary to lure Takamiya into the third music room during his term at Ouran.

Like his predecessor, Takarada genially agrees without much of a fight either, even though he instincts are telling him that tea and cake and the ability to hear more about his work is generally not what is driving these girls to pull him along after them; in his experience, all the times he's ever been invited out to a host or hostess club have involved some wacky attempt at recruitment.

None of which have ever gone particularly well either, as he's discovered that the types of gentlemen most often found in host clubs all seem to look like rejects from Johnny's jimusho in that they can't act (like most Johnnies) but at the same time, don't quite have the fresh-faced flawless looks that all true Johnnies have to make their lack of thespian talent almost forgivable to the general public.

But at the same time he can't say that he's not a little bit curious; host clubs are everywhere in the city but it isn't every day that one gets to see what a _high school_ version might look like. Especially in a place as luxurious as Ouran.

As it turns out he isn't disappointed, because once he and the girls enter the doors marked as the third music room a few moments later, there is a burst of fragrant wind and the dramatic swirl of white sakura petals in the air around seven very beautiful people, all of whom are dressed in masterfully tailored Shinsengumi style costumes.

"Welcome," the seven hosts say in tandem, and Takarada recognizes the blond boy from earlier, much recovered from his granular state and now wielding an impressive looking antique sword as he stands at the forefront of the group display, hair suddenly long and tied back as he winks at the young ladies filtering into his domain. "We're here to protect you, princesses," he tells them gallantly, and reaches out with to casually catch one of the white sakura petals between his fingers as it passes in the air in front of him. He brings it to his lips and kisses it before letting it go again. Bows. "So please tell us how we may be of service to you all."

The girls around Takarada all sigh and squeal; one of them tugs on his arm and looks up at him with big, bright eyes. "Takarada-sama," she murmurs, confirming his earlier suspicious, "don't you think all of Japan would love to see men as beautiful as Tamaki-sama and the others on TV _all_ of the time?"

Takarada smiles gently back at her and eventually supposes, as he is led to a table by a lovely young lady who plays a very convincing young man, that maybe the members of this host club have some acting potential after all.

**4. **

From what Takarada can see as he sits on the couch waiting for afternoon activities in the third music room to begin, Tamaki already has all of the basics down.

The host club president claps his hands over his head decisively as he lines himself and his supporting cast into position in preparation for today's opening scene, the blond in a specially crafted matador's outfit with an appropriately colored rose clutched firmly between his teeth. "Remember everyone!" he declares, with surprising clarity despite the stem in his mouth (Takarada can only assume practice got him there), "Today, we are matadors of _love_!"

"Does this," the twins begin, after a beat, "mean that tono is calling the guests bulls?" They pause for effect eyes glimmering. "Shocking!"

Tamaki, somehow nonplussed by the twins' willful attempt to destroy his conceptual image (or simply not noticing it), strikes what looks to be more a Flamenco pose than a bull fighting one. "Yes!" he replies hotly, clearly still at the apex of his creative zone, "they are the most beautiful, challenging bulls we have ever seen! Our job is to mesmerize them, to stir their powerful hearts into frenzy until they come charging into our arms!"

"Does he know," Haruhi asks Kyouya in the background, "that they kill the bull afterwards?"

Kyouya adjusts his glasses and calmly hands her a red rose. "Then please think of the bulls as the guests' wallets," he tells her in cooperative addendum to his president, before moving to the back of the formation with his blue rose and dutifully letting Tamaki line him up as only the cool character can line up, with his back facing the front doors and his face in slightly shaded profile.

The twins apparently do know about that little tradition, and have no qualms about being vocal about it. "Right in the heart," they state, tsking, "Tono wants us to stab them right in the heart."

Tamaki simply flutters when he hears, and Takarada-san thinks that no matter what is being said by whom, he is determined to see his vision come to fruition today. "Indeed! Pierce their hearts with your loving gazes, my matadors of love!" he agrees happily, and poses Mori with his hand in the front of his shirt, looking straight ahead with those unwavering eyes. Honey stands at his feet, wrapped up cutely in shimmering red cloth and almost—but somehow not quite—looking out of place as he smiles.

"Good, good, very good!" Tamaki coos in English once everyone is in place, twins back to back front and left of center. He takes up his position at the very center—rose still professionally clutched between his teeth— just as the bells chime to signal the start of afternoon activities and the doors burst open with a flood of girls in delicate canary yellow.

And the minute those girls see the solid gazes of the host club members in their matador's costumes, looking at each and every one of them with eyes that succeed in piercing them straight into their very hearts the freeze, mesmerized just as Tamaki had imagined.

"Welcome," the host club members declare in tandem, amidst a strategically timed breeze that sends their hair and capes fluttering in a picture perfect manner.

Several girls instantly fall to their knees. _Pierced through the heart_.

Tamaki is naturally ecstatic at how precisely his vision had played out today; he flutters around the room happily afterwards, showing off his costume to the guests and declaring that beautiful visions as imagined by beautiful people are the most perfect things in this world.

"Hmmm, how would you ladies like to be rescued by firemen tomorrow?" he poses, imagination already in full gear for next time, and most likely the time after that, and the time after that as well.

The girls as it is, are all for it.

In the meantime Takarada simply laughs to himself from where he is watching on the couch and thinks that more than just having all of his showmanship basics down, perhaps someone like Suoh Tamaki might just have _the gift _after all.

Because in all his years in his line of work, Takarada has discovered that the most important thing about being—and staying— a leader in the entertainment industry is something that goes beyond mere imagination, that goes beyond simple vision and execution and determination.

It means finding a way to never grow up.

**5. **

"Being a manager to one of L.M.E.'s talents simply means having the same kind of love for that talent that a parent has for his or her child," Takarada-san lectures hotly during week two of his series, somehow using the hook that is currently where his left hand is supposed to be to emphasize his point as he points to the charts (of rather, murals of parents with their young) behind him. "The care and cultivation of another life as it takes shape and blooms year in and year out is a manager's greatest pride."

"Greatest pride!" the colorful parrot perched on his shoulder echoes, somehow also working to emphasize his lecture points rather than distract from them.

"How wonderful, Takarada-senchou!" some of the audience members respond. "We always thought the entertainment industry was a cold, hard world based on money and competition. It's often that way in shoujo manga, after all."

"Those are also the reasons why," another young man adds, after a beat, "we thought you dressed as a pirate today."

Takarada-san laughs. "Don't get me wrong, my lovelies," he cautions them. "The entertainment world _is_ like that. Which is why we have agencies, where people can surround themselves with other people who are on the same side as they are, who are trying to help each other out! It is for the purpose of building a family network, to aid one another in the struggle against this industry's cruel and unforgiving side!"

"Cruel and unforgiving!" the parrot repeats, and is rewarded with a cracker.

The crowd murmurs again. "Is that why," a shy little slip of a thing starts, pink-cheeked, "that handsome man behind you is all tied up? Is he a hostage you took from another agency?"

Pirate-captain Takarada laughs. "Oh no, this is Yashiro-kun, one of L.M.E.'s talent managers," he explains. "I Shanghai'd him outside the studio not twenty minutes ago!"

Which, everyone supposes, finally explains the costume.

Behind him, Yashiro sighs in a helpless sort of way, bound by rope and blindfolded (if not gagged). "Shachou," he begins after a beat, sounding tired, "I really have to get Ren fed and to his next shooting location, please."

A hand in the audience goes up. "If you're on the same side as Yashiro-kun, why did you kidnap him?" a male student asks, and everyone really does want to know the answer.

"To illustrate to you all," Takarada-senchou explains happily, "the full extent of the parent/child relationship between a manager and his talent!"

Some question marks go up in the air.

Takarada-senchou, having anticipated this, pushes a button on his remote control; the chart behind him instantly changes from its heartwarming reel of parent/child images to real time camera footage of Tsuruga Ren in his dressing room.

There is a general "Kyaaaaa!" of ecstasy from the Ren fans in the audience.

"As you can see!" Takarada-senchou begins, gesticulating with his hook again, "Tsuruga-san without his manager is like a child without the guidance of a parent. Helpless. Aimless."

"Shachou," Yashiro begins again, a little more anxiously now than before, "what are you showing them? What's going on? Is Ren alright?"

"And as you can see here!" Takarada-senchou switches immediately, and brandishes his hook in Yashiro's direction, "Here we have the anxious mother, who has been separated from her young for far too long!"

"Far too long!" the parrot says.

It is all very dramatic.

"So he's really completely helpless without his manager?" one of the students asks after a beat, and sounds skeptical.

"Like a newborn babe!" Takarada-senchou assures them, while Yashiro starts to struggle in his ropes, trying to get out because he can't see what Takarada-san is talking about with the blindfold and _what if Ren really is in trouble_? With some creative maneuvering (and some slight rope burn), he manages to use his teeth to grab a pen from his shirt pocket; he flips it over his head and into his hands.

From there, he tries to cut his way to freedom.

With a pen.

In the meantime, back at the studio, Ren's stomach grumbles.

He absently wonders why Yashiro is taking so long with lunch.

**6.**

While the host club—much like the entertainment industry— is very clearly about love and being loved, Takarada thinks that the two are also very slightly different at the same time, in that not everyone who is in the host club is in search of a spotlight.

Today is tea outdoors on the lawn, because the days are growing steadily warmer and longer as summer approaches, and sunlight and fresh air are the natural companions of handsome young men.

The twins take advantage of the heat by brandishing super soakers at one another, and there is first, their sweet laughter and flirtatious words as they innocently chase each other across the grass, spraying water and looking glorious in their mischief.

The host club guests who are watching them turn pink-cheeked and sigh at the refreshing sight of brothers frolicking together in the afternoon sunlight.

In the background, Mori silently holds up a parasol, to ward off any stray streams of water from Honey, who is sitting in the shade of a tree, happily eating strawberry shortcake.

From there the twins' loving water fight turns predictably wicked, as they sight Tamaki on a picnic blanket beside Takarada, the host club president hotly extolling the virtues of a person's true beauty under natural lighting as opposed to the indoor kind to his guests. "It makes the glow of one's skin much more radiant…" is the sentence the blond is in the middle of when he suddenly gets hit with face full of water and the twins' perfectly synchronized giggles.

"Tono," they say, feigning innocence, "tono come play with us!"

Tamaki sputters and is about to say something wise about how beautiful people should not do ugly things, but when he tosses his wet hair back out of his face, he is interrupted again, this time by the fluttering swoons of his many admirers. On instinct, his angry sputtering instantly turns into professional posing. "Well," he declares after a beat, when he realizes the water is good for him after all, "I suppose if I must play, then I must!"

Much to the delight of the girls, he tosses his hair one more time before holding his hand out to Kyouya, who wordlessly supplies him a super soaker all his own. From there Tamaki takes off, while Kouya vaguely gestures to the numerous cameramen he has hidden around the perimeter, telling them via radio to please make sure to photograph every second of this for the host club's photobook, as it goes on sale later in the season.

From there it is the twins and Tamaki gleefully chasing each other around the lawn (Tamaki mostly losing), as streams of water fly through the air around them and catch the rays of sunlight, bathing the three handsome combatants in a wondrous prismatic glow as the host club customers look on in awe.

In the background, Mori senses it when the first stray jet of water is headed straight at him from behind; he fights the instinctive urge to dodge around it and _cut through it _with the butter knife on the table next to him, instead bracing himself and letting it hit him square in the back, right between the shoulder blades and freezing cold.

In front of him, Honey's precious strawberry shortcake is saved.

Several high-powered shots subsequently follow that first one through the course of the next fifteen minutes; one lands against the back of Mori's head, two hit his shoulders, and the last sprays against the nape of his neck (which then drips down his neck and into his linen shirt).

Honey sits in front of him the whole time, completely at peace. "Takashi," he says, sweetly oblivious, "More cookies, please!"

Mori dutifully puts several more cookies onto Honey's outstretched plate, as the twins and Tamaki run by with water balloons this time, as the innocent battle begins to turn into a full scale war. Mori very quickly shifts to the right of the table to keep the tea sandwiches dry as a blue water-filled grenade arcs down towards Honey's snacks.

It explodes against his back.

A beat.

And then, "Takashi?" Honey asks, looking at Mori with some concern as the kendoist looms over the sandwich platter.

Mori coughs and sits up straighter.

Honey laughs at him. "You can have _all_ the sandwiches, if you want!" the smaller boy offers next, and looks up at his cousin with excessive fondness as he pushes the tray towards him in offering.

Then, he goes back to eating cookies.

Mori simply smiles in return and refills Honey's tea for him, back and shoulders completely soaked but looking perfectly content all the same.

Takarada supposes that some people just don't need a spotlight to shine.

**7. **

"It's Tono in forty years!" the twins decry with great mischief that afternoon, upon their closer inspection of Takarada-san within the confines of the third music room. "Or twenty-five years, without money or SPF!" they amend after a beat, because calculating age in poor people years is apparently a matter of multiplying the number of rich people years by seventy-five percent before subtracting an additional twelve and a half percent for skin-damaging ultra-violet exposure in consideration of said poor person's inevitable stint at menial outdoor labor.

Their eyes gleam mischief as they say it, and Takarada laughs a little at the show they are currently putting on for him. "Not bad, not bad!" he delights, and pauses to applaud their timing and showmanship. They must rehearse quite a bit to be able to talk in tandem on the fly after all, and Takarada is all about appreciating the hard work others put into entertaining a crowd. Their technique isn't perfect quite yet of course, but they're still young (and amateurs) after all; he thinks that should they decide to really apply themselves to these roles and give it everything they've got, they ought to have it down pat in the next few years at the very latest. Perhaps even sooner than that, if only they'd realize that the one on the left does things with a little bit more malice than the one on the right.

With a little adjustment, the two of them would be able to play one another so perfectly well that no one would be able to tell them apart ever again. Perhaps not even themselves.

Of course, this is only if they really do want to peruse this kind of thing for that much longer.

But Takarada thinks that always having to be a character actor like that must get rather boring at one point, after X-amount of times doing the same thing over and over again, without being given anything new or challenging or _different._ It really would be just as easy for the two of them to seek various angles rather than always trying to slither into the same niche.

He imagines the fit can be rather tight at times.

"Have you two ever considered," he begins, eyeing first Hikaru on the left and then Kaoru on the right, "going for the good-twin/evil-twin angle?" He pauses to stir sugar into his tea. "It might be a refreshing change of pace, and Hikaru-kun would really be able to use his range."

A moment.

In which the twins eye each other, and then Takarada again, carefully. "Maybe _not_ tono in forty years," Hikaru on the left begins, and leans closer towards his brother's shoulder.

"Maybe tono in a _million_ years," Kaoru on the right finishes, and once again, has much less ill-intent than his twin.

Both of them manage to look back at Takarada warily, this time in flawless synchronization.

Takarada is naturally delighted; he thinks that given how different the two of them actually are, they must really rehearse their timing quite a lot, to be able to match as well as they do like that.

**8.**

"Why did you become a host, Haruhi-chan?" Takarada asks warmly towards the end of his stay at Ouran, as the young woman dressed to play the role of a young man helps him stir two spoonfuls of sugar into his afternoon tea. "If you don't mind me asking, of course," he adds.

"I don't mind, Takarada-san," she tells him after a moment, quite simply. "I became a host because I owe Tamaki-senpai and the other members so much."

He can tell that the words she chooses to use are very carefully vague, but said with such an air of friendliness so as to dull the way they fall on her guests' ears. She smiles automatically as she hands him the cup and the saucer. "I suppose in that vein, being a host simply became inevitable for me."

The two young girls sitting on either side of the L.M.E. president squeal predictably at the implications such vagueness leaves behind—happily filling in the blanks themselves— while he just smiles in thanks and accepts his drink when she offers it to him. "I see." He moves to ask again, except this time he changes the question into the one he'd really meant to ask. "And do you enjoy being a host, Haruhi-chan?"

She blinks. "I don't mind," she repeats again, perhaps a bit perfunctorily, before stopping to backtrack a little when the words don't quite fit somehow.

She thinks about it.

And then, after a moment, Takarada notices it when she finds her answer, because her smile changes very slightly, perhaps without her knowing. "Actually, I'm having more fun working here than I thought I would," she says to him without a hint of vagueness, and makes Takarada feel like he's already seen this story somewhere else before, in someone a lot like her but completely different at the same time.

He laughs a little when he realizes it, and genially sips his tea.

Clearly he is a very lucky man in this lifetime, in that he has had the good fortune of getting to meet more than just_ one_ girl who had fallen into a strange new world for all the wrong reasons, without the knowledge or care or desires that she should have had long before taking that first uncertain step.

He thinks of it as fortunate because to be able to see a person grow and change from that most basic of all emotional states is like the culmination of a great love story; it has the power to move you to the very core of your heart.

Because when he watches Haruhi smiling just like she's smiling right now—much like he'd seen that other young woman do yesterday actually, in front of the camera— it tells him that despite the reasons that brought her here being all the wrong ones, she is beginning to discover that there are things about being here that are fun and meaningful as well, things that are slowly pulling her further and further into this world everyday, perhaps without her knowing it. Whether she is playing this role or that role or a combination of the two depending on who's looking at any one time, she is falling in love with her characters and in return, discovering the hearts of the other characters around her.

He thinks it shows.

Right now she is fully immersed in her role as Haruhi-kun the boy-host, Takarada believes, watching her as she laughs naturally with the girls in the third music room, exactly as one would expect of such a boy in such a place. He sees her pour their tea for them and encourage gentle conversation and thinks that he hasn't seen such a well-played young man as performed by a young lady since the last time he'd had the pleasure of having a chat with Shouhei back in Japan.

Haruhi-chan, he believes, is enjoying her role almost as much as Kyouko-chan had enjoyed being Kuon.

And when Tamaki twirls into the picture and peers over Haruhi's shoulder with a broad, emphatic gesture of his pride at her ongoing development as a proper host club member, Takarada realizes—again, for the thousandth time— that these sorts of great transformations are only possible because of one thing and one thing only.

It is indeed, a story that he's seen before in his line of work.

But luckily, it is also a story he could watch _all day_, from now until forever.

Because, he thinks, as Haruhi laughs with her guests and looks warmly at her hosts without knowing she's doing it, even if this story has similar elements to all the ones that came before it, Takarada is certain that it is building towards the type of ending that will always win his heart of hearts.

All you need is love.

**9. **

If Haruhi-chan is the leading lady and Tamaki-kun is the doting parent, Takarada can't help but wonder what's become of the leading man in this story, if he's even made an appearance yet.

Maybe, he thinks, it simply hasn't been decided yet.

Perhaps Hikaru-kun will disentwine his arms from around his brother long enough to fill the role (but then again maybe not). Or Mori-kun will stop being satisfied with standing in the background and step forward to take the spotlight; Kaoru-kun could just as easily want to stop playing the subservient role to Hikaru's dominant one someday and honestly, Tamaki-kun could just as easily switch from "Otousan" to "Anata" if he'd just stop to think about it all seriously first. As far as Takarada is concerned, even Honey might decide to bring out his inner power more permanently on a whim sometime in the future, and then where would this story go?

Then of course, there is one more person left, and Takarada stops for a moment to eye Kyouya-kun, who is off in the corner with his laptop, sipping coffee and very coolly crunching numbers for the most part, while the others entertain their guests.

He looks up every once in a while though, when he hears Tamaki's bubbling laughter or Haruhi's exasperated sighs; his features are very expertly schooled the entire time except, Takarada thinks, down in his eyes. It might be why he insists on glasses instead of contacts; Takarada has been in this business long enough to notice that despite the seeming perfection of Kyouya-kun's façade, there is still a weakness, somewhere underneath that cold, businesslike demeanor.

If Haruhi-chan's story is one that he's seen already, perhaps Kyouya-kun's is as well.

Because it seems like there are always young men out there doing their best to prove something to someone, even as they try to convince themselves that the things they sacrifice along the way are acceptable losses.

From Takarada's experience, love has a way of pushing through anyway, whether it is in the ringing laughter of a dramatic host club president warmly calling "Okaasan, okaasan!" every five minutes or the sweetly innocent eyes of a girl who just doesn't know—or doesn't notice— the effect she has on a man who adores her quite yet.

Of course that doesn't mean Takarada has set his hat for Kyouya as the male lead; it really does vary moment by moment he thinks, between Tamaki's doting, clueless attentions and Mori's silent watchfulness, between Hikaru's temperamental teasing, Kaoru's calm smiles and Honey's sweet, effusive hugs.

Though admittedly, there is a little something extra about Kyouya-kun's sidelong glances and quietly stubborn resolve that intrigue him so. Perhaps it is the not-so-secret shoujo manga fan in him.

He looks forward to seeing how the rest of this story pans out.

**10.**

On Takarada-san's last day at Ouran the final festivities include snake charmers, a caravan of camels hauling silks and spices, and an entire line of veiled belly dancers wiggling sinuously down the academy's front drive towards the iron gates. "Farewell, Lory-chan!" the cheerful overhead banner reads (as provided by L.M.E.'s marketing department), while Takarada-san rides in full sheik cosplay atop a flying carpet that must have cost his special effects department thousands just to figure out the logistics behind.

Kyouya walks alongside the procession in mild irritation and takes notes here and there on the things he'd personally try to improve if he were the one running this show, as well as mentally debating on alternative color versions to Takarada-san's white robes for Tamaki when the Host Club uses this desert prince theme for their own outdoor party later in the year. Kyouya has found that white often seems to wash out Tamaki's already pale features in direct sunlight and thinks that perhaps a royal purple or a dark blue would suit the club president much better.

He is so focused on the task at hand that it is with some surprise when the fanfare ceases for a moment—right in front of the school gates—and Kyouya has the privilege of receiving the L.M.E. president's personal business card, along with a smile that is only (by his calculations anyway) thirty percent showmanship and seventy percent something else entirely.

"I would be honored to be your contact within the Ootori group, Takarada-san," Kyouya responds perfunctorily as he takes the card, and for the moment is all courtesy and demure smiles despite all the trouble Takarada-san has thus far caused him during his short time here. "If there is anything our company can do for you, please don't hesitate to call me."

Takarada-san laughs, revealing the mirth lines around his eyes and mouth, signs that he has been doing this for much longer than Kyouya has been alive. "This," the older man clarifies wryly, with a nod towards the business card, "is not out of any interest in dealing with the Ootori group, Kyouya-kun."

Kyouya blinks. "Then I'm afraid I don't understand," he responds, still unfailingly polite on principle despite the perceived slight to his empire.

Takarada-san simply seems amused. "I would like very much for you to come and be one of L.M.E.'s talents," he clarifies eventually, in all seriousness.

Kyouya isn't quite sure how to respond. "Why is that, if you don't mind me asking?" he manages eventually, and adjusts his glasses out of habit. "Tamaki would be much better suited, don't you think?"

The seventy percent something else entirely on Takarada-san's face shifts into an even one hundred. "Tamaki-kun is a wonderful boy," the older man assures Kyouya, eyes glinting. "But in all my years," he adds, perfectly poised on his magic carpet even under Kyouya's challenging scrutiny, "I am convinced that you are one of the most gifted actors I have ever had the pleasure of meeting."

Kyouya blinks.

"Well, you don't have to answer me now," Takarada-san twitters. "Call me when you think you're ready."

And then, as if on cue, the front gates burst open with a shower of confetti and two roaring towers of flame, as Takarada-san leads his entourage out of the school, all smiles and showmanship again. "Farewell, Ouran Academy!" he calls after the waving, cheering students, and addresses them all with the warmth and regard of a longtime friend.

Kyouya remains standing beside the gates until the last camel is out of sight some ten minutes later; he looks down at the business card in his hand and feels something a bit like amusement well up in his chest.

"An actor?" he murmurs to himself thoughtfully, and for a moment, his eyes are completely hidden behind the gleam of afternoon sunlight against his glasses lenses. He is fairly certain that there is nothing in the world that would anger his father more than having a son who decided to pursue the _arts_.

The corner of his lip curls upward— just a little— at the thought, before he adjusts his frames and calmly deposits Takarada-san's business card in the trashcan on his way back inside.

Because despite the L.M.E. president's high praise just a moment ago, Kyouya doesn't think he's quite cut out to play _any_ role as dictated to him by someone else.

Really, his rather poor rendition of a dutiful third son should be proof enough as it is.

**END**


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